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That would mean the average electricity bill reaching £812 by the end of the decade, of which £285 would be green tax and VAT.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance predicts the same impact on gas bills, which would rise to £1,070, making the total average bill almost £1,900.

It says the total spend on green charges and tax would be £620.

Officials from the Department of Energy & Climate Change said green expenditure will be more than offset by consumer savings, leaving households better off.

They claim that by 2020 bills will be £166 lower than if no action is taken. Under EU law, Britain’s use of energy from renewables needs to reach 15 per cent of consumption by 2020 – one of the largest proportional increases in Europe.

The Government is committed to reducing greenhouse gases by a fifth from 1990 levels after passing a Brussels edict into law.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance wants ministers to change course in the face of an ‘affordability crisis’.

It wants cuts to subsidies for expensive energy sources, such as wind, and an end to industry taxes on carbon dioxide emissions, costs that are passed on to consumers.

The campaign group is calling on ministers to open up new affordable energy sources such as shale gas and modern coal power plants.Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘People who are already finding it hard to pay bills will not be able to cope with big increases in prices needed to meet draconian targets.

‘We cannot allow more families to suffer needlessly and more jobs to be driven overseas thanks to high prices here in Britain.’

Dr John Constable, of the charity the Renewable Energy Foundation, said: ‘Government says its policies will protect the consumer against future fossil fuel price increases, but DECC’s own estimates show that even if fossil fuels are very expensive in 2020, climate policies will add a further 26 per cent to the price of electricity. What kind of protection is that?’

Despite public anger, ministers have shown no sign of changing course.

By 2020, £7.6billion in subsidies will be raised from energy bills every year and spent on low carbon initiatives ¿ 90 per cent on renewables such as offshore wind and hydropower, the study said

Energy Secretary Ed Davey has promised guaranteed prices – at up to triple market rate – for ‘green’ electricity until 2019, in a bid to expand the sector.

Ministers say the incentive will make Britain appeal to investors, and hope 30 per cent of power will come from renewables by 2020.

Onshore wind farms are set to be paid at least £100 per megawatt hour – double the current wholesale price – and offshore wind £150. The difference between the wholesale price and the agreed rate will be met by the taxpayer.

A DECC spokesman said: ‘It’s the global gas price, not green subsidies, that has primarily been pushing up energy bills.

‘Sixty per cent of the increase in household energy bills between 2010 and 2012 was caused by this.

‘Investing in home grown alternatives is the only sure fire way of insulating our economy and bill payers from this volatility.’

÷The TPA website, which includes a future energy bills calculator, is at http://energyswindle.org/

This swindle is a political vanity project

BY MATTHEW SINCLAIR, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, TAXPAYER'S ALLIANCE

Fed up with paying more and more for electricity and gas? The Government should be on your side, trying to secure lower bills for British families and British industry. Instead politicians are adding to the problem with extravagant subsidies for expensive sources of energy such as wind turbines – paid for in your bills – and a whole range of other energy taxes.

Add together all of the taxes and charges and they already make up about 11 per cent of a typical family’s gas bill and 16 per cent of their electricity bill.

But it is going to get much worse.

Targets agreed in Brussels require us to increase our use of expensive renewable energy more than any other country in Europe, let alone the rest of the world, says MATTHEW SINCLAIR

Targets agreed in Brussels require us to increase our use of expensive renewable energy more than any other country in Europe, let alone the rest of the world.

To meet the target, politicians are relying on a massive expansion of onshore and offshore wind in particular.

Unfortunately it is all really expensive. Energy companies have to invest an enormous amount of money and they want a return on that investment. The Government therefore promises them big profits with the subsidies paid for by you and me.

Under the new ‘contracts for difference’ announced last week, onshore wind is going to get a guaranteed price roughly double the current electricity price.

Offshore wind will get more than three times the current electricity price.

If the Government makes you use a lot more energy that costs twice as much, or three times as much, don’t be surprised when your bills go up. If you want to know how it will affect your bill, you can find out at energyswindle.org. Experts at Liberum Capital estimate that if we meet Government targets overall total power costs will increase by another 29 per cent above inflation by 2020 and 100 per cent above inflation by 2030.

You might be able to offset some of that by doing things such as lagging the loft, but do you really think you could cope with prices doubling?

British businesses are hit hard by rising costs too. Some can pass those bills on to their customers and that means you pay higher prices in the shops. Others compete with foreign rivals and do not have that luxury. They have to cut wages or cut jobs. Ministers need to acknowledge that the European Union renewable energy target for 2020 was a bad deal for Britain and abandon it.

Then they need to get rid of the carbon tax introduced in 2010, and allow the development of new affordable sources of energy, including British shale gas and modern, efficient coal power plants.

Energy taxes of all kinds have been sold as a means to do something about climate change. But Britain is only responsible for less than two per cent of global emissions, dwarfed by countries such as America, India and China.

It would be much more effective to put Britain’s scientists and engineers to work developing better alternatives to fossil fuels for the future, rather than deploying existing inadequate alternatives on an unsustainable scale now.

Politicians should be working to ease the burden on families struggling with enormous pressure on their finances.

Every time it becomes more expensive for people to turn on the lights, they have to cut back elsewhere. Every time it becomes more expensive for people to heat their homes, they are forced to take more dangerous risks in the winter, especially the elderly. Every time businesses see their energy costs increase investments and jobs find another home, from Georgia to Guangzhou.

We cannot inflict that on people in the name of a political vanity project. It’s time to stop the energy swindle.